21 Accents

I'd hit that (just wanted to be the first to say that). You know she had this done so she could read all the comments about how doable and 'hot' she is!

Pretty great, especially since it was all in one take. The only one I thought was dodgy was the Belfast one. I'm not from there but I lived in the republic of Ireland for 10 years or so.

Kiwi accent was pretty terrible. Stereotype rather than realistic.

My guess is she's from Washington. I'm in Texas, and her Texas accent was believable. But if she's seriously an actress, she needs to do the Montoya accent:

"Hallo! My name is Amy Walker - you killed my father... prepare to die!"

Definitely not an Aussie. I would just presume/guess that the first one is the natural accent. Pretty impressive talent. Leaves Sean Connery's Russian for dead.

There is a Canadian flag icon associated with whoever posted the video, but that doesn't necessarily mean she's from Canada.

Egads! O_o

Tona B. was right! Looks like she's from Washington:

http://www.amywalker.info/
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/whidbey/archives/129691.asp

oh that brooklyn accent was dismal and pretty insulting

Oh, don't be so hard on her. She did a great job. I used to do the same sort of thing when I was a kid. I'd read out loud when I was bored - a different accent for each paragraph.

I totally guessed Washington, by the way. It just seemed odd to have it in there since I didn't think Washingtonians really had any kind of distinct accent. Don't they just sound like "Americans"?

..not every Canadian speaks with a french accent.. she should have used Montreal as an example instead of Toronto.

her french accent wasnt that good. her pronounciation for paris was off. some of the times like the cali, seattle, and toronto sounded almost the same, just the expressions are diffrent.

If you liked that you'd probably love this site:

http://accent.gmu.edu/index.php

there's something funny about the movement of her mouth...doesn't look right to me

A great effort to cover a whole lot of territory. Her South Carolina accent is in the ballpark but still needs work.

By the way, the female southern accent (anywhere from southern Virginia through Mississpi) is the most beautiful, sexy accent there is, at least in the US!

Ugh! So many of those were so over the top! I can't believe there are as many positive comments about them as there are. Here are the worst:
Italy
Germany
France
Texas
Toronto
Brooklyn
S. Carolina

I don't know what Tona B is talking about, because that Texas accent was horrid. I'm a native Texan, and I might have a bit of a drawl sometimes but it is NOT that. Even the country folk I know don't sound so.. old western movie-ish.

I agree with Caitin. I am from Texas, and that accent was horrid. Even country folks don't sound like that. That was quite Hollywood-Texas. I think because our vowels are shorter and happier.

It's OK.

I wished she would've stuck to doing only actual English-speaking countries, and that would've been funnier, such as Australia, NZ, South Africa, Canada, the Southern USA regions, the SW US regions, Hawaii, Jamaica, etc etc..........

the uk accents seem a bit forced, she's not british for sure.

Dunno... the italian accent pretty much sucked.

french accent in toronto?

her SC accent is horrible.

well, maybe it'd be accurate like 50 years ago.

Her Toronto accent was atrocious: sounded more like a stereotypical Minnesota accent. The Brooklyn and Italian ones were also noticeably off, but the number of accents she can do (even stereotypically) is pretty impressive.

If not entirely accurate, it was at least entertaining. I hope us Canadians don't actually sound like the Toronto accent...do we? The Russian one was pretty sexy though.

I actually think she has quite a bit of talent considering that she is doing almost two dozen accents one right after the other. People say Meryl Streep does dead-on accents but she gets lots of training in each one, I think this chick would be just as good with the same resources.

The Texas accent is pretty ridiculous caricature.

wait.....there's Californians have accents?

How is her Russian accent in any way sexy? Being Russian myself, I find it pretty horrible, reminds be a bit of the accents used in old movies.

Meryl "A Dingo ate my bayybee" Streep does NOT do Australian well.

I'm sure everyone that is from one of the places she did feels the same way but her Charleston accent was completely off. I could buy it as just your basic southern accent but Charleston has a very distinct accent that she was nowhere close to.

i really think some people here should lighten up. this is NOT supposed to be an ethnographic study. break a smile!

Hello my name is Amy Walker and I have multiple personality disorder....seriously, that was mildly entertaining, even though I have to agree, the Brooklyn, Aussie and German accents were kind of bad.

Her Toronto accent sounds more like a mashup of French Canadian and Newfie.

I'm a New Yorker and I gotta say, she got a smirk out of me on the Brooklyn accent. It was bad, sure, but it was funny.

Talented for sure, but I've never heard anyone in Toronto speak with an accent like that. Its not even remotely close

I'm impressed because if I try to do more than one accent at a time my brain gets stuck. It's interesting to see the comments here, though. I didn't know there was a Seattle accent, but I've never been out there, either. I think her last accent was the most interesting because that sort of accent always feels unnatural to me.

I also realized she didn't do an "Ohio" accent... Which, as I've been told, is what people are trained with to have "no accent." (DJs and stuff go to school here for that, apparently.)

That chick did a terrible impression of Katherine Hepburn, and needs to let her eyebrows grow back. The Toronto made me chuckle, just because I thought she was going to say Minnesota.

I'm a Texan and did not like the accent. I thought she was going to pull out six shooters and whoop... YEE HAW YEE HAW etc.

i am aussie, do we seriously sound like that?

mmmmm...its like hearing yourself on a recording

The California accent was dead on, but only to the SoCal area.

Overall, extremely impressive/entertaining.

That's funny cause I'm from Northern California and I thought the California accent was dead on too! It was a little eerie to hear my own accent coming out of her mouth. And to find out that Seattle has a different accent! I think the Seattle one was how I THOUGHT we were all talking. Weird!!

WOW Lay off her jesus!

Thanks for the link.

I know I sure as hell couldn't do that many accents half as well as she could. Can you? Maybe you can create a youtube video so we can make fun of you.

The California accent was spot-on. I recognised it even before she mentioned where she was from.

she does porn

Shes obviously from Orange County California.

It's wicked funny that so many people will say, "OMG, that is NOT how we sound here."

Yeah, yeah it is. :P

well, i think the german accent was pretty good, because there are much more germans speaking with a worse accent.

Actually, I'm a Kiwi and I thought she pretty much nailed the NZ accent. The Toronto accent worried me a bit - she sounded a bit irish there for a second - but then again what would I know. I know the NZ accent.. she got it. Brookyn accent was a stereotype (I lived there for 5 years) but you know.. what are ya gonna do the whole place is a stereotype.. forget about it.

Can't be Californian accent. It's missing "like" and "um": I'm like Amy Walker, I was born in um, California.

First off Bravo!!! great range of accents.

I do voices and have a range. But boy has she got them down pat!!!

Keep up the Great work Amy, and I hope some agency picks you up very very Soon!!!!!

The UK and Ireland accents are not good - the Glasgow and Belfast aren't even close and the Dublin just sounds like someone trying to sound like they were from Dublin

If she'd done a Brummie (UK) accent it would have been hilarious.

She was good. Few people could do that. Yes, her accents were off, but unless she'd spent considerable time in each of the places she was mimicking, I'm sure we can forgive her.

Brilliant but I live in Italy and th italian accent is not that good. It sound just like the accent of a foreigner who tries to speak with the accent italian people use to have abroad. I hope I've been clear enough.

The belfast accent could really do with some work, having lived in those parts 20+ years, every time I hear such an accent on TV I cringe as it's so grating with so many words mispronounced, after the lucid tones of the presenters.

Ha ha the Irish accents were well dodgy, that wasnt close to any Irish accent, granted its a good impersonation of how people must think we sound but youd not fool an actual irish person the length or width of the country. Sounded like something from the American movie, darby o gill and the little people,,

bean -- she wasn't doing a bad "Katherine Hepburn" imitation, she specifically stated she was doing the "transatlantic" accent that was ubiquitous in American movies in the 1930s and 40s (though, yes KH was best known for the sound.)

I think she did an admirable job. It's easy to criticize someone else's work. But unless you can do better lay off. I've seen professional actors raking in tons of money who couldn't match her.

The Wellington Accent wasn't too good but it was an amusing video nonetheless.

As a southerner (Mississippian) I think her SC accent was horrible. The typical "this is the southern accent Hollywood believes to be true" Maybe I'm prejudiced, buy I have NEVER heard anyone who wasn't from the south do a good southern impression.

Not bad, but she's no master dialectition.

irish ones were terrible,especially belfast,it sounded the same as the forced dublin accent,all hatred aside...........she was decent,cant fool the irish

AGH! That Texas accent was horrible! It was very stereotypical. Most of us don't sound that way. We say y'all, talk a little slower and sometimes words like "nice" come out with the i sounding a little like aahh.

If her she made her voice higher her russian accent wouldn't have been bad. Russian women have high voices

I thought they were all pretty forced or exaggerated. She must be a stage actress.

I'm Canadian and the only time I've heard a Canadian accent like that is when there's a Canadian character on the Simpsons.

Heck, she does a good job. Of course they are all stereotypes and the subtle lackings in each can be spotted by native speakers. Getting such a range of accents covered in a single take is pretty challenging, though, and she showed her capabilities well. I'm sure if she were cast as a single one in a theatre or film production, she could hone things further.

I'm a Jock/Paddy mongrel and have lived all over the uk, I've family in France and spent many years in australia.

So I can't really comment on most of the US accents here with any great certainty, but if they were like the ones I know then...

The Glasgow and Belfast as well as the Dublin were all out. The Aussie, Sydneysider and Bush "Ocker" were out too. The Kiwi was out as well.

The french was a bit cartoon.

BUT....and it's a BIG BUT, they were all remarkably close, and doubly so considering they were all done in VERY quick succession.

I get the impression that if she spoke to a Glaswegian, or anyone, for 30 mins she'd have nailed it.

Very impressive.

Well done

Oh I forgot to say, yes her scots andm irish were out but good god she was brilliant by comparison to some of the garbage accents I've heard from US films and TV.

The TV show LOST had an episode covering the back story of the Scottish guy, in that were fake jock accents last heard in Brigadoon.

So she is a hell of a lot better than most I've heard.

So where is she really from?

She's a cunning linguist.

The scottih accent was pretty terrible, seriously- what was that???

I suppose I'm out-voted on the Texas accent, but I don't mind. (Admitedly, I grew up on MTV.) I think she did rather well, regardless. Especially if that was without any voice coaching. I like that she tried different personas with her accents, and the rapid-fire delivery was impressive, too.

Finally, it's satisfying to know I called what state she's from!
:D
*smartypants dance*

OH, booooooo! Her southern accents were horrible.
They were all movie accents, ineh?
(I loved the TransAtlantic 1945 film voice, but alas it was too slow.)

Was there supposed to be a difference between California and Seattle? They both sounded pretty much the same to me. And they sounded like me... but I'm Canadian. :P

We do not talk like that in Toronto.

Toronto? i thought that was s'posed to be minnesota. boo.
and i wonder if she's spent any time at all in italy (or knows any english-speaking italians)? that was just... weird.

Places Amy ISN'T from:
Germany
France
New York (especially terrible on this one)
South Carolina

My guess is Seattle

I can't remember that chick's name, but she sure gets around!!!

Jon, you are correct (almost).
Amy Walker is from Langley, Washington -- near Seattle. She was born on New Year's Day, 1979. She was fibbing when she said she was 25!

glasgow accent was rubbish reminded me of those terrible 50's american films about scotland where everybody sayed things like och i laddie:(

Tooo bad she choose the most booooring sentence imaginable.

Her Californian accent sounds...
unnatural.

Weird, since I have never heard anyone try to imitate it.

sorry but i couldn't get through that video.
and i refuse to go back to hear her canadian take.
smug and annoying in how many accents ?

Toronto was good, but exaggerated... i don't know anyone from Toronto who actually talks like that. I've only ever heard that accent on 22 Minutes and Air Farce (satire shows).

Her stresses were off for the California accent which, I think, was the only difference between California and Seattle... The funny thing about accents is how people treat you when you have one. Girls with "California" accents are automatically generalized as vapid narcissists.

They all seemed believable to me, except the one I speak, which is by-God Southern.

Her Charleston accent, like that of so many awful Hollywood movies, sounds like Foghorn Leghorn at a Civil War reenactment.

Good Southern accents by non-Southerners:

Miranda Richardson in "The Apostle"
Jennifer Aniston in "The Good Girl"
Kelly Macdonald in "No Country for Old Men"

No sure why I picked all women there...

Seriously guys, I don't know about english countries accents, but in Italy we don't really use to talk like Super Mario. She may be good and all, but the italian one was ridicolous.
It's like when in movies they give the italian guy role to an actor that thinks he can do the right accent (it happens all the time), he always sounds embarassing to us and I'm almost grateful those kind of movies are dubbed here in Italy.
By the way the video was funny. :)

The Toronto accent was horrendous.

i'm from cali and the accent is off.

I've been an actor for over 30 years, and I have to give her props for being able to switch from accent to accent and actually do a pretty decent job on most of them. I agree with the comment that if she had an opportunity to listen to an actual speaker from those regions for 30 minutes she would probably be dead-on. I also agree that very few actors who are not from the South can do a convincing Southern accent. As any Southerner will tell you, there are so many regional variations that a Southerner can usually discern that probably sound alike to a non-southerner. Georgians and North Carolinians, for example, sound quite different to me (a Virginian).

As a lifelong Brooklynite I can safely say her Brooklyn accent blows. But most of the others seemed convincing to me, more or less. Perhaps it's too much to ask that an affected accent be good enough to fool the people she's imitating.

Ugh.

Bad. Really, really bad accents. They are all so exaggerated I couldn't stop cringing. Especially the Aussie ones. Those were hideous.

However, if this is her audition reel, I expect her to get parts on American television.

Bleah.

The only believable one was Seattle which, I guess, makes sense.

My job involves listening and translating accents/voices from all over the world (English spoken), which I've been at that for 20 years. I live in the heart of the country and really don't have any accent at all myself (not north, south, east or west). I think all her accents were horrible and felt from listening to her voice, she really had no accent herself (either). Living in Washington, you wouldn't.

I LOVED the Transatlantic accent. I had to play it a couple of times to hear it again.

The real way to test if someone is from the Seattle area is not to check the accent, but give them a list of local words to pronounce. (Along with my name, good ones are "Sequim", "Puyallup" and "Oregon".)

Ok, English is not my mother tongue, so almost all accents sound acceptable enough. The German accent is a bit too soft still (she should cut the words more into syllables - that is almost what a good German pronunciation is about...)
I think, you can never expect someone to speak a totally 100% right accent if he/she is not originally from that place.
I am totally impressed by all the accents she uses, and I'm wondering if she is able to really use them in normal conversation over a length of time.

Trick to doing a good German accent: keep the teeth together as often as possible, and don't let the tongue show. (Also helps when actually speaking German, especially if you don't want to come off as a tourist.)

Toronto accent sounded like the awful accents on 22 Minutes or the Simpsons. I speak with Canadians all across the country every day, and only a very few Maritimers speak it that thick.
Other accents sounded forced and stereotypical. Do Russian women really lower their voices like that?

I was very entertained by the video. Authentic sounding to me.

Me think there are some that doth protest too much. She's a voice over artist and every one of her dialects and accents are realistic for what is used in the industry. Especially interactive work. (Video Games for those that don't know)

She's got a lot of talent to be able to fire them off like that and until you've done that kind of studying and work for this craft, slamming her seems a bit petty and rude.

A lot of them sounded like movie accents (ve have vays of makingk you talk), but it was a pretty good job. Despite what some other Aussies said, the Australian accents were fine - about the first time an American ever did a credible job. :) (Apparently she studied here, so no surprise there.)